


I’ll do anything you ask (i don’t know what else to do)

by DusknotDawn



Series: What Comes After [1]
Category: Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality Spectrum, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, I’m still bitter about the canon ending so thats where this comes from, Ooc mirnatius? Idk folks i was heavily projecting, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DusknotDawn/pseuds/DusknotDawn
Summary: After the events of the book, Mirnatius struggles to find purpose. He latches on to Irina, but he’s grown too used to servitude. What happens when she asks for something he’s not sure he can give?
Relationships: Irina & Mirnatius (Spinning Silver), Irina/Mirnatius (Spinning Silver)
Series: What Comes After [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006392
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	I’ll do anything you ask (i don’t know what else to do)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This fic is both my first ever published work on here, and also thoroughly unbeta’d. So, fair warning! This entire fic comes from the need to flesh out Irina and Mirnatius’ ending. Let them be in love, dammit!

It had been a few short months since my tsarina had claimed and cleansed me in one fell swoop. Summer had come and stayed, fields of rye blooming green and browning under the sun’s gaze. It had not been easy, adjusting to the freedom I now felt. It was as if I had spent my whole life with shackles and chains, and I was now without them. Chernobog had been a cruel companion, feasting on my pain, bringing it about however he could, but he had been constant. Without him, I often felt as if I would float away, no longer tethered to the earth by any bindings. It was strange. I had wished for years to be free, but now that I was, I could not make sense of it. 

The days of summer were long and sweltering, and I drifted along them without much care. I watched, distantly, as my tsarina rewove her plans to topple me from my throne into something that kept me breathing as easily as one might restitch a row of embroidery. Casimir, who was a loose thread in the tapestry of insurrection that I hadn’t even noticed, had been married to a young archduke’s daughter within the month. As I saw the look Irina’s father shot her as the feasting began, I suddenly realized that Casimir had been intended to marry someone else, before plans had swiftly changed. I waited to feel anger, to feel the burning cinders in my belly so that I may have churned them up and spat them out, the scorching of my throat an indication that I could still feel something. But it did not come, and instead, a sweeping relief rushed through instead, cold as a blizzard.

My tsarina had claimed me as hers, but it had come with none of the taxes I had been secretly waiting for. Without knowing it, I had let myself drift without purpose, just so that I would have nothing wrenched away from me when the new monster who now held my leash decided to take what she had been promised. But I was not dead,nor was I some political stepping stool on her way to power. I was under her protection, as a matter of fact. I found I enjoyed it, watching as she deflected treachery away from me with a kind smile and demure eyes. But my tsarina was no monster, and for all she gave me, she demanded nothing in return.   
After the wedding, I felt grounded once more. Irina, who had seemed unsure of what to do with me when I had drifted, was now dragging me off to parties and political meetings with boyars with little reprieve. She never demanded I go, but to be fair, she did not need to. Having now returned to myself, I was desperate for purpose. If she was kind enough to give me one, I was not stupid enough to refuse. We spent the summer this way, my brilliant tsarina building the kingdom to unseen heights, and me, her loyal sheepdog, willing to do whatever she asked, too thrilled by the freedom to say yes that I never thought to say no. I did not think my tsarina noticed, or if she did, I didn’t think she cared. But she had never done what I expected her to. 

Autumn was starting to peek its head out, tinging the leaves with red and ripening harvests across Lithvas, and that was when my tsarina sat on the bed in our chamber and declared, “I think it’s time I was with child.” For the first time in months, I recoiled at her words.

“Wh-what?”

“I think it’s time we finally consummate our marriage. I’ve been putting it off, but people are starting to wonder.” there was something strange in her voice, almost daring, but I was too busy fighting back my panic to look into it.

For months, I had avoided this. I had not spoken to her of it, and for the most part, had not thought of it. After that Tatar guard had been found frozen, I had briefly entertained the thought of finding another to suit our purposes, but my mind had recoiled violently at the thought of another man touching Irina, in a way it had not done just days earlier. If felt odd, that trigger of anger, and I reached out again to it now, just to see if it had only been the remnants of Chernobog’s possessiveness.

It had not been. As soon as the image of my tsarina being touched by a faceless figure crossed my mind, a wave of anger so hot it burned roared to life inside of me. I clenched my fists against it, refusing to let my tsarina see what the mere thought of it had done to me. Even as the anger raged, a twin flame of self-hatred kindled. Who was I to police my tsarina’s body, a worthless boy who shuddered at the thought of being touched, of being held? While the thought of her being touched by another man filled me with rage, the thought of touching her me, at least, touching her to...consummate things, as she so delicately put it, filled me with disgust. Not at her, never at her, but at the act itself, the slide of bodies that other boys had spoken so saliciously of. Even before waking up to a lifeless body in my bed, the thought of sex had filled me with a sort of abstract terror. The corpse, however, certainly hadn’t helped. In the years since it had been easy for the most part to avoid looking at others with any interest. I’d had slip-ups, of course, pretty faces I longed to draw, dared to steal an extra look at. My monster did the rest, luring them into bed with my eyes and my voice but devouring them with a demon's hunger. But what kind of monster was I, that I wondered less of the pain they had suffered and instead of how much Chernobog had done with my body while it had me in its grasp. 

Despite all of this, despite the pain and disgust that bubbled in my stomach as I thought of being touched like that, of fornication, it was nothing compared to the despair I felt at the thought of letting her do those things to another. 

I stepped in front of her, then. My wife, my savior. I could not form the words of consent, the phrase rotting in my mouth. So I stayed silent, my eyes downcast as I slowly unbuttoned my tunic. 

“Mirnatius, what are you doing?” I looked up at the panic in my wife’s voice. 

“What’s wrong, my tsarina? Do I not please you?” I forced as much levity into my voice as I could, pasting a smirk across my face as I looked down at her. She stood up, placing a hand on my chest and pushing me away from the bed. 

“Mirnatius, my darling, no. This is not what I meant to come of this. Do you mean to submit to me so easily? Do you think me such a harsh taskmaster that I would not let you refuse even this?”

“Whatever do you mean, darling? This is nothing more than a marital act, and a pleasurable one at that.” it was easier to convince myself of these words by teasing her with them. “Was I too bold? Perhaps you would like me to play the nubile lover, leave you to be the queen in all things. But how can I refuse you, even as a role to play? You, who saved me and kept me on my throne.” There it was, the truth of it. I was a debtor still, no longer to a demon, but to a queen of snow, my darling tsarina. 

There were tears in her eyes now, and I could not for the life of me figure out why. I raised my hand to brush them away, but now she was the one to step back, sinking back onto the edge of the bed. “I had hoped...no, I suppose I had fooled myself, pulled the wool over my own eyes. I thought, perhaps, you were doing these things not out of obligation but...oh, I suppose it does not matter. I was wrong, in any case.”

“My tsarina, what is wrong? What have I done to upset you? If there is anything I can do to correct it, say it now.” I was desperate now, desperate to dry her tears. I barely heard what I was saying, though in the back of my mind I knew I had revealed more than I had ever planned to. 

“Oh, my dear Mirnatius, I loathe asking anything more of you, not now that I know how deep your obligation to me runs.” She wiped the tears from her eyes, and I watched as she froze her face into a mask of ice, hiding her heart from the world, from me. “I will find another place to sleep tonight, I think.” She looked up, her eyes suddenly clear. “But before I go, I do have one last...decree, I suppose.”

The finality of her words struck terror into my heart. Had I depleted my usefulness? Was my inability to do this one simple task the death of our arrangement? “Whatever you say, my tsarina, it shall be done.” the desperation clear in my voice, but I was past caring. 

“Whatever servitude you believe you owe me, it is completed. You owe me nothing, you will give me nothing, I will ask you for nothing. I am not your master, your captor. I am, from now on, your tsarina only in name. I will keep you on the throne, but only for the sake of keeping myself at your side. For this service, I ask for nothing in return, and I will refuse all you offer. I have made no deals with you, Tsar Mirnatius, and I vow to never do so.”

I could not speak, could not move. I was frozen, staring at my tsarina in panic. If the loss of Chernobog had me loose in the wind, her proclamation had launched me into the heavens, only to now have me falling to earth at a deadly speed. It was only as she made to move that I was forced back into myself.

“Why? Why would you forsake me? Is my service that abhorrent to you?” I croaked out, tears pricking my eyes. “What have I done to make you dismiss me?”

“Oh, Mirnatius,” she sighed, and I could not bear the resignation in her face. “You are not abhorrent to me. In these months, I have found so much joy in our time together. Seeing you rejoice in your freedom from Chernobog has made me so happy, and I would do anything to see that you never lose it again.” 

“Then why?” I could feel my voice catch in my throat, and I looked at her pleadingly. “What is so wrong about using my freedom to serve you?”

Her eyes softened, and I could see sadness on her face. “That is no freedom, Mirnatius.” She took a deep breath, and looked me in the eyes, capturing my gaze. “You-you did not choose me,” my tsarina said, her face a blank field of snow. “Neither of us have had very much choice in this life, have we?” I had spent long enough studying her that I could see the despair in her eyes, a wretched thawing of her features. “Even now, now that the demon is gone from you and you have no one’s hunger left to quench but your own, I feel as if I force decisions upon you. I took you as mine, and though, at that moment, there was no asking I could have done without possibly losing you, you still had no choice. 

“I feel...I feel maybe, in taking my choice back from the world, I have forced yours even further into its grasp.”

I waited once more for the burn of smoke in my belly, the anger that came with being seen and laid bare. But again, it didn’t come. Chernobog was gone, and I had no such anger at being known. I sat down next to her, grasping her hand in mine. My tsarina was cool to the touch, and I dared lean into her just a bit more. I looked up at her, and saw that she was already looking at me, a curious hopefulness in her eyes. 

“You are right, I suppose. For all of my life, I have lived with the weight of another’s expectations on my shoulders, and the threat of suffering if I did not meet them. The only choice I had was one of delays. And even that came with consequences.Then, miraculously, that weight was gone. And it was thanks to you, my tsarina! All the freedom I now have, is thanks to you.”

“But you do not owe me for that, do you understand? There is no contract between us, no debt you have to pay because I banished a monster. The things I have asked of you these past few months, any of them you could have refused. There would have been no consequence, no punishment. That would not have been freedom.”

“You are spectacular, you know that?” I laughed at the magic of her words, the truth of them that seemed so obvious to her, but had eluded me for all this time. 

“What do you mean?”

“My life was yours for the taking. I am the tsar of Lithvas, and if you had asked for my kingdom on a platter, I would have smoked and salted it for you. Anyone else in my court, in the world, would have jumped on that chance. But not you. You...you beautiful creature! Oh, I have never loved anyone as I have loved you.” I was smiling now, the force of it stretching my mouth. “Have I said those words before? Out loud? To anyone? Surely I have not, for I have never tasted anything so sweet. I love you, Irina!”

There was a feeling of giddiness and terror, all at once. There was reason, I knew that I had never said those words to anyone before. And reason still to regret saying them now. 

My tsarina’s face stayed blank for several, torturous seconds. I did not know what she was thinking, I could very rarely parse it. I was used to waiting for her to explain her grand machinations, but this particular instance was torturous. I felt fear well up in me, outstripping the glee by a mile. “Should-should I have not said such things? I promise I do not require you to return my feelings. I may have demanded many unreasonable things in my time as tsar, but never something like this, certainly not from you--”

“Do you mean it?” she whispered, and I almost couldn’t hear her over my own panic.

“Pardon?”

“Did you mean what you said? Do you truly love me?” Her eyes filled once more with tears, and I turned to her, grasping both of her hands to my chest.

“Of course, my darling! As I have loved no one else,” I laughed, “Have you ever known me to say something I do not mean?”

She spared me a smile, nervous as it was, before her face morphed back into that deadly stillness. “Why?” and her voice was so soft that I questioned hearing it. I looked at her, not sure if I should respond, and she spoke again. “Why? Why do you love me, Mirnatius? And, another question, I suppose, is how? How do you love me? Do you love me because I saved you from a demon, and in doing so won your admiration? Do you love me because you think you are required, as some sort of twisted payment for your freedom? 

“What have I done to make you love me, Mirnatius? I am nothing spectacular, no otherworldly beauty or possessor of great magic. I am only a girl, a girl who used you to survive. Do you not remember that? Before I saved you I-I” she cut off then, tears streaming from her eyes and sobs wracking from her body. 

“I almost killed you. You, who had never known life as anything but a puppet. You, who understood my heart as soon as I showed it to you. You, the only person, save Magreta, who asks nothing of me, and only takes what I give you.” she pulled her hands away from me, pulling them towards herself. “I don’t deserve your love, Mirnatius. The country’s maybe, but I have done nothing that would make me worthy of yours.” 

I was crying now too, I found, as I looked at my wife. My lovely, lovely wife, who, for all she was the smartest person I had ever met, was being a massive idiot. And I told her so.

“Wh-what?” 

“You’re an idiot, my tsarina. The only smart thing you said in that ridiculous monologue of your is that you deserve the country’s love. Hell, you deserve the country’s idolation, but I doubt the church would approve.” I wiped the tears from my face, and kneeled in front of her. “When we first met, I was nothing more than a scared boy. All I did, every decision I made, was to hide from pain. And I did some terrible things, the selfish creature I was. To the world, I was a monster. And God, did I let them think that. I wished to be a monster, so that maybe the things I did would go down easier. I would have to be a real fool to blame you for seeing what I wanted you to see.”

She smiled slightly at me, a hopeful thing. “Are you claiming that you’re not a fool, your highness?” her tone was teasing, and my heart swelled. I placed a hand over my heart and threw my head back dramatically.

“Only for you, tsarina.” She laughed then, a sound as clear and sweet as snowmelt. She leaned down until our faces almost touched.

“Do you know what, Tsar Mirnatius?”

“What?” I breathed out, entranced by her sparkling eyes.

“I’m in love with you too.” she whispered, her smile widening, her whole face shining like a field of fresh snow.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, hope you enjoyed! I do gave a second part planned, to wrap up some loose ends that the concept of a sex-repulsed Mirnatius dangles in front of me, but I thought that it might be better to split the two parts up, since the second chapter has a bit of a different tone!


End file.
